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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro won election to a new term, the country's election authority said early Monday, but the United States and several Latin American countries all questioned the legitimacy of the outcome after a vote in which the opposition expressed confidence it had won.
The National Electoral Council released its results six hours after polls closed, saying Maduro had 51% of the vote compared to 44% for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez.
The result did not include vote tallies from individual polling centers, which election watchdogs said was critical for determining the accuracy of the vote count. The result also came after exit polling showed González winning by a large margin.
After the Maduro-controlled electoral council announced the result, residents around Caracas almost immediately and into the late morning began banging on pots to protest the result.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, "We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people."
Nine Latin American countries called for an audit of the polling data, with some leaders saying they would not recognize the vote until it was certified as accurate.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, a longtime leader within the region's leftist movement, pointedly did not congratulate Maduro on his claim of victory.
"The Brazilian government welcomes the peaceful nature of yesterday's elections in Venezuela and is following the counting process closely," Lula said in a statement. "In this context, it awaits the publication by the National Electoral Council of data broken down by polling station, an indispensable step for the transparency, credibility and legitimacy of the election result."
Maduro told supporters from a stage where he also danced to reggaeton music, "What a beautiful day we've lived. Thanks for giving me this victory that the people so deserve. This is the triumph of the ideals of equality."
Maduro contended his opposition was using an old tactic: crying fraud about an election it had lost.
"I've seen this movie a few times," Maduro said.
Maduro received support from leftist leaders in Cuba, Nicaragua, Russia, Bolivia and Honduras, who applauded his victory.
As the voting neared an end Sunday afternoon, an exit poll conducted by Edison Research showed Gonzalez winning by a large margin, receiving more than double the votes for Maduro. The opposition also had access to a quick count, which was an actual tabulation of large samples from voting stations and considered to be highly accurate. It gave González nearly 8.5 million votes, 4.5 million more than Maduro.
Leading up to the election, the Maduro regime arrested dozens of opposition campaign workers. The government, to curb voter turnout, only permitted 69,000 of the nearly 5 million voting-age Venezuelans who had moved abroad to cast a ballot.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado rejected the election authority's result, saying instead that González had won 70% of the vote.
Maduro, speaking to a rally of supporters early Monday, promised "peace and security." He dismissed foreign criticism while presenting Venezuela's election authority, which is controlled by Maduro loyalists, as more legitimate than systems in other countries, such as the United States.
Chile's President Gabriel Boric called the election results "difficult to believe."
Boric said on X that the Venezuelan people and the international community demand full transparency of the votes and the counting process, and for independent international observers to verify the results.
Foreign ministers from Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay made a similar call in a joint statement, saying a transparent count is the only way to ensure the results respect the will of the Venezuelan voters.
In Europe, Spain's Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares Bueno called for a show of data from all polling stations, and for people to maintain calm and a sense of civility.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said access to voting records from polling stations is "vital" and that the will of Venezuelan voters "must be respected."
Maduro drew support from some allies following the announcement of his victory, including from Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who said he spoke to Maduro and congratulated him for a "historic electoral triumph."
Honduran President Xiomara Castro congratulated Maduro and the Venezuelan people "for their unobjectionable triumph, which reaffirms their sovereignty."
Bolivian President Luis Arce said his government welcomed "the fact that the will of the Venezuelan people at the polls has been respected."
Maduro is serving his second term as president, and Sunday's vote represented his toughest electoral challenge.
González is a retired diplomat who was thrust into the campaign in April after Venezuela's Supreme Court blocked Machado from the ballot.
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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